French President Emmanuel Macron announced Wednesday an important contact he would have "in the coming days" on the crisis in Ukraine, while Washington warned of the risks of a nuclear accident that "could damage the entire region."

Macron told reporters in Paris that he intends to contact Russian President Vladimir Putin directly "in the coming days regarding civil nuclear issues first, and the power plant in Zaporizhia, after I contacted" the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi.

On the other hand, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, at the end of the Collective Security Treaty Organization summit in Yerevan, that "until now, there is no agreement to hold a telephone conversation with the French president. Quite frankly, there has been no concrete proposal on this issue." .

Macron added, "The Russian strategy lies in frustrating the people on the ground," continuing, "Our elected officials also have a role to play," recalling that France will host, on December 13, "a conference in Paris on the Ukrainian resistance and its steadfastness."

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on French mayors to secure assistance for his country to prevent Russia from using the cold this winter as a "weapon of mass destruction," in a message broadcast during the "Mayors" conference in Paris.

"The Kremlin wants to turn the cold of winter into a weapon of mass destruction," Zelensky said in a video during the conference, which was attended by a delegation of Ukrainian officials.


Power supply interruption

And the Ukrainian nuclear energy agency, Energoatom, announced on Wednesday that three Ukrainian nuclear plants were "disconnected" from the electricity grid after Russian strikes targeted energy facilities and caused a major power outage.

For its part, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that external electricity supplies were cut off from the Zaporizhia plant again, and it relies on emergency diesel generators.

"The latest incident highlights the increasingly fragile and dangerous security situation and nuclear security," the IAEA said in a statement.

In this regard, the White House warned of the possibility that "Russia is prepared to increase the risk of a nuclear accident that would harm the entire region."

The White House also confirmed that the Russian strikes were aimed at "increasing the suffering of Ukrainians and had no military objective."

In turn, the US representative to the Security Council said, "Moscow is adopting a cowardly and inhumane strategy after facing difficulties on the battlefield."

This is #Kyiv aftermath today.

34 injured.

5 of them are children.

It's hard to breathe.

But #russia don't get your hopes up.

No Ukrainian will stop fighting pic.twitter.com/DexeHwyauI

— Lesia Vasylenko (@lesiavasylenko) November 23, 2022

Continuous Russian strikes

Washington's comments came after Kyiv announced on Wednesday that Russian strikes across Ukraine had targeted the power grid, causing deaths and disconnecting three nuclear power plants from the grid, leading to a "massive" power outage in neighboring Moldova.

And the Ukrainian Air Force announced on Wednesday that Russia had launched about 70 cruise missiles at Ukraine, 51 of which were shot down.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to address an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council late Wednesday evening.

"The killing of civilians and the destruction of civilian facilities are terrorist acts. Ukraine continues to demand a firm response from the international community to these crimes," Zelensky wrote in a tweet.

New American aid

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced, on Wednesday, a new military aid package to Ukraine worth $400 million, with the aim of supporting it in defending its lands against Russia.

Blinken said, in a statement published on the US State Department website, that the new package includes additional weapons, ammunition, and air defense equipment that will help Kyiv counter the Kremlin's relentless attacks on Ukraine's vital energy infrastructure.

With this step, the total US military assistance to Ukraine brings to an unprecedented level of about $19.7 billion in weapons and other equipment since the start of the Russian war on February 24, according to the same statement.